Krzysztof Penderecki has said that he looks on his Symphony No. 1, written when he was 40 years old, as something of a summing-up of his first stylistic period. "I was then attempting to make a reckoning of my two decades' worth of musical experience—a time of radical, avant-garde seeking. It was the summa of what I could say as an avant-garde artist." Composed in 1973, the Symphony No. 1—Penderecki's first large work for full orchestra—was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, Perkins Engines Group. It was first performed in the Cathedral of the city of Peterborough on July 19, 1973.

Formally, the five-part arch of the symphony, inspired by a painting of two angels that Penderecki had seen in Ravenna, is analogous to a sonata-allegro, with its statement of the main ideas of the work, the development of those ideas, and their return in something like their original guise. But the ideas in this work are not melodic themes, as would usually be the case; the structure of Penderecki's symphony is held together by the multifarious tone colors produced by the large orchestra and its expanded percussion section. Some of the textures produced are busily contrapuntal, while others remain static for extended periods. Many of the sonorities familiar from Penderecki's notorious early works, such as the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), are present here as well—tone clusters, wild glissandi, microtones, strident chorales, and a wide variety of extended techniques for all the instrumental choirs.

The work's first section, "Arche," opens with a series of seven strikes of the slapstick. Other percussion instruments and pizzicato strings gradually join in as the music gains momentum. A sustained octave A in the horns leads into "Dynamis I," the beginning of the development section, featuring brass fanfares and some faster-paced, scherzo-like music. A central, mysteriously beautiful section in the form of a passacaglia is the largest part of the work. "Dynamis II" repeats in varied form some of the sounds and gestures of "Dynamis I," and another A in the horns leads into the concluding "Arche I"; it ends with a still, spare coda, featuring a throbbing low A flat in the double basses.

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